ShipRecycling Pages:

15 December 2011

Navy Ship Sinking Pollutes Sea with Toxic PCBs:

EPA sued for failure to regulate ocean
dumping of PCBs

San Francisco, CA —

Today, conservation groups filed a lawsuit challenging
the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA) ongoing failure to adequately regulate a federal ship
sinking program that pollutes the sea with toxic chemicals. Earthjustice, on
behalf of the Basel Action Network and Sierra Club, filed the lawsuit in U.S.
District Court of Northern California.

The
U.S. Navy’s ship sinking exercise program, called SINKEX, uses decommissioned
military ships for live-fire target practice as the Navy’s preferred method of
ship disposal, sinking a reported 109 ships at sea over the past decade alone.
This method of ship disposal differs from the U.S. Maritime administration’s,
as well as the private shipping industries, preferred method of ship recycling.

The
suit claims EPA fails to adequately regulate the ocean dumping of toxic PCBs, (polychlorinated
biphenyls), a group of chemicals that are highly toxic and dangerous to human
health. PCBs are contained in the obsolete ships used by the U.S. Navy for ship
sinking exercises.

New
data from a study in Florida supports the conclusion that PCBs, dumped during
ship sinking exercises, are leaching from the sunken vessels and are entering
the marine food chain. According to the study, this leads to PCB concentrations
in fish that make them unsafe for human consumption.

In
July 2011, the Basel Action Network and the Sierra Club petitioned EPA to
regulate ship dumping more stringently. EPA failed to respond to the petition
by the statutory deadline.

“The
ocean dumping of our national fleet squanders natural resources that could
otherwise be recycled, eliminates recycling job opportunities that could boost
local conomies, and poses unreasonable risk to the marine environment and to
the people who derive their livelihood or recreation from it,” said Colby Self
of the Basel Action Network. “The EPA can no longer turn a blind eye to this
arcane practice; we have given them full notice.”

“Protection
of our nation includes protection of our ocean environment and all the species,
including humans, who depend on the health of the ocean,” said Dave Raney of
the Sierra Club. “By strictly adhering to the law, we need not trade one for
the other in the SINKEX exercises."

The
lawsuit claims that EPA must initiate rules to regulate the marine disposal of
PCBs during ship sinking exercises to protect human health and the environment
against an unreasonable risk of injury.

BAN
and Sierra Club are advocates for responsible ship recycling in the U.S. that
not only protects the environment and human health from toxic PCBs, but also
creates recycling jobs and stimulates the local economy.

“EPA
is legally required to keep dangerous chemicals like PCBs out of our oceans,”
said Amanda Goodin, an attorney with Earthjustice representing
BAN and Sierra Club. “It’s time for EPA to make the Navy clean up its act.”